Page 6 of A Circle of Uncommon Witches

FIVE

Teeth terrified Doreen. It wasn’t just that they were exposed bone, which was a bit unnerving when she thought too long about it—it was that they were mountainous. She’d had visions as a child about teeth that turned into volcanoes, which erupted and festered and boiled. When Ada, with her cloak of smoke and face that refused to reveal itself, said the word trials , Doreen saw the jagged mountains of her waking nightmares.

“What trials?” Doreen asked after forcing a swallow.

“The blessing trials. They are the only way to break an unbreakable curse. Which is what you carry. There are ways to demand knowledge, to gain the answers to any question. Though there is a price that comes with the asking.”

“You have questions,” Doreen said. “Why don’t you take the trials?”

“I traded my chance for a request of a different sort.”

“What do you mean?”

“I chose to stand before the gods and ask for power. For the power to find a soul.”

“And?”

“The power granted to me turned me into this. If you seek an audience with the gods, I suggest you choose better,” Ada said. Doreen turned her head, unable to stare at the misshapen form of Ada any longer. Her gaze fixed on the nearest wall, which shimmered in a hundred shades—a rainbow of color.

“Margot said you were a necromancer,” Doreen whispered, the words tripping off her tongue.

“The strong and cunning Margot,” Ada said, her voice deepening. “It must have been hard for her, seeing as much as she did.”

“Seeing?”

“The truth of her life.”

“She didn’t see a way out; she chose to marry.”

“She chose to believe in love,” Ada said, a wistful tone creeping into her voice. “For now, at least.”

“And you are a necromancer over the living as well as the dead?” Doreen asked, fear spiking in her that Margot could have been possessed by the creature. That, perhaps, Margot’s bad choices weren’t only her own.

“She has dominion over her own soul. I am a seeker and keeper of souls, a whisperer to the ones that come from me and mine.” Ada’s voice shifted, dropping into sotto voce. “I think you should let me speak to yours. Will it listen?”

“Enough,” Ambrose said, his voice cutting in, bright and disorienting. “Ada, what of the trials?”

“The centuries have made you less fun, old friend. The language of the lost is there, on the wall. Those who wish to speak it will find it waiting, and if you follow, you will find your way. But remember…” She paused, and her next words echoed in the cave. “The truth is the spell. The spell is the truth.”

“That’s not cryptic,” Doreen said, but she stood, moving closer to the shimmering stone wall. It undulated before her. “How do we read something that isn’t there?”

The air moved around her; fabric brushed the tips of her fingers and she shivered. She knew it was Ambrose, invading her space like he owned the air.

Before he could open his mouth and tell her, because she was fairly certain the pedantic witch lived to talk down to her, she reached out and pressed a fingertip into the wall. With a pop, a fissure grew and spread, down, up, over, and sideways—a spiderweb of cracks spilling across the wall.

The cavern shook from the force, and Doreen stumbled back, turning from the wall. Ambrose caught her, the skin on her arms tingling where his hands gripped her. The urge to lean into him was there, and she banished it, untangling herself and stepping away. Ada cackled; her form turned away from them as she faced the fire again. The ground beneath their feet rumbled, and Doreen turned to face the wall as the carvings across it slowed and stopped. Small Celtic knots and etchings led into a larger drawing of a creature. Not quite a dragon nor a seahorse nor a ram nor a steer.

“The Pictish Beast,” Doreen said, moving in to study it more closely. The symbol was carved into hundreds of stones across Scotland and other countries, a beast that did not exist but looked a bit like a kelpie and a dragon and the Loch Ness Monster combined. “How is this a map to anything ?”

“Not everything reveals itself in the moment,” Ambrose said. He brushed a hand over the edge of the creature, and the lines shuddered and reshaped. The rock shook and reformed as a new drawing rose to the surface. It was a tree, with leaves falling from it and a crest in its center.

Ambrose let loose a mournful sigh.

“You know it?” Doreen asked.

“Yes,” he said. “It’s the marking of my ancestral home.”

“Cursed house. Cursed lineage,” Ada called, the fire before her growing higher as she poked at it.

Ada’s laugh drifted over, and Ambrose waved a hand, actively trying to beat the sound away.

“Wherever we go, we go together,” he said, as though he were the one making all the decisions.

“You aren’t the boss,” Doreen said. She turned to Ada. “Can you point me out of your creepy cave now? Please.”

“Since you asked so nicely…” Ada said, still poking at the fire.

“Not so fast,” Ambrose said, his eyes on Doreen. “Magic, especially old magic, always requires payment. The trials—what do we need to enter them?”

Ada smiled, her set of rotting teeth flashing before the shadows overtook it. “Why don’t you reach into my fire and see what’s there, Ambrose of MacDonald?”

Ambrose stepped forward and investigated the flames. “I don’t think so.”

“No?”

Doreen shifted away from the wall and stood beside him. In the flames, she saw an orb, glowing bright red from the heat of the fire. “That’s a third-degree burn waiting to happen.”

“Into the fire, come what may, if you want it, take it to find the way,” Ada sang, her voice soft and strangely sweet. Before the last note receded, she reached out and grabbed Doreen. Smoke swirled around the two of them, the scent of dirt and decay pressing hard into Doreen’s nostrils and mouth. Doreen tasted ash and sputtered as the chain-like grip Ada had on her arm tightened.

“His line can only harm you,” Ada whispered, her pearl eyes shifting from white to black, two dark pupil orbs peering deep into Doreen.

Images rushed through Doreen’s mind. A flash of cliffs, a carving of stone, purple wisteria vines climbing up stone, the mountains of teeth that haunted her nightmares, and a sea of rock. She gasped, trying to yank away from the Queen of the Order of the Dead. Her grip tightened even more and Ada reached down, thrusting Doreen toward the flame.

“You have to take what is yours,” Ada said. “Or leave it for another to take it from you. The spell is the truth.”

Ambrose had told Doreen she was the most powerful witch of her line. She was from the thirteenth generation of witches, born with natural power. Doreen wasn’t afraid of her power; she was a mimic, and if the keeper of secrets, this necromancer of a being, could reach into the flames, then she would too.

“The spell is the truth,” Doreen whispered. She began to chant, the words rising up and out. The spell is the truth, the truth is the spell. She reached into the fire.

It was ice cold to the touch, and she had to bite down on her lip to keep from jerking her hand back. She closed her eyes and reached further, until she felt a hard, round object. She pulled it out and Ada released her.

Doreen’s fingers were closed around the object, and her eyes immediately went to Ambrose’s face. It was mere inches from hers, his hands gripped into fists, his brow crumpled. If she didn’t know better, she’d think he’d been concerned for her.

Until he opened his mouth, and said, “Well, then, let’s see it.”

Doreen was tempted to throw it at his head. Instead, she ignored him completely and turned to Ada. “Thank you,” she whispered, a sense of foreboding washing over her as the words left her lips.

The queen bowed her head a fraction before she stepped away and into the fire. It engulfed her, and then Ada was gone.